<p>High scorers - what did you find to be the single best form of test prep?
For those of you w/ 1600’s, how many of you didn’t practice or study at all?</p>
<p>1540 : 740 V</p>
<p>We have this widely popular (understatement of the year) test prep program in the houston area called Testmasters that is cheap (relatively) and guarantees a 200 pt increase. The classes are over a course of 3 wks, meeting twice/wk and focusing each time on a particular area (i.e. critical reading or QC).</p>
<p>The classes themselves are useless (poorly organized + rowdy) but there are two invaluable resources they allow their students to access: </p>
<p>A) All SAT tests from the past 10-15 years
B) A continuously updated wordlist (this thing is $$$- the accuracy in prediction is seriously close to 100% …and it’s not like there’s 20,000 words on there…merely 500) </p>
<p>HTH</p>
<p>btw, are you a junior?</p>
<p>1560</p>
<p>I used “10 Real SATs,” but just to see what kind of a score to expect. Otherwise, I didn’t practice or study.</p>
<p>old tests and practice questions are especially useful, the more you do the better you get. </p>
<p>Also, it is best to simulate the actual testing situation. Try to find out if anyone in your area offers virtual-reality SAT practice tests. Going through a few simulated tests will help you with timing an ease the overall tension during test day. Personally, I also think that getting used to doing math problems under pressure will go a long way towards reducing the number of careless mistakes.</p>
<p>1520 (not sure if that’s “high”)- I used a Kaplan review book and did lots of practice tests. That’s it, no courses, no $$$ spent.</p>
<p>that’s high enough</p>
<p>1510–I brought that up with practice from a 1320, so those who say it can’t be done are flat out wrong. For me, what I really needed was to learn the tricks behind doing the math problems quickly, it’s all just a matter of figuring out what you’re doing wrong…</p>
<p>1530</p>
<p>No studying. I should have.</p>
<p>Yeh… maybe if you studied you coulda gotten a perfect score…</p>
<p>Damn… a 1530… damn…
THat’s too bad innit duck?</p>
<p>Geez all you 1500 ers… I admire ya’all</p>
<p>lol I didn’t study. I studied in like 10th grade for bit - period of time with parental pressure. took it spring of Junior year and was too busy to put any time on it =/ Yes, I COULD have had a higher score. Do I regret not spending days and months of my precious time cramming for a stupid standardized test that tells nothing about your intelligence or talents or potential other than the fact that you valued high test scores and had plenty of time on your hands to cram your brain full of useless knowledge or had rich parents who sent you to private tutors? Obviously not ;)</p>
<p>Well I’m hoping that I never have to see the SATs ever again!!!</p>
<p>When the SATs entered my life in January of this year… it completely changed! lol…
I got even more stressed…</p>
<p>Ahh I’m happy with my 1350… It’s a veryyy reassuring score lol. Hardly perfect tho (I’m sorry I’m ruining your perfect score chain with this grotesque number)</p>
<p>1540…practiced w/ 10 real sats to improve math score.</p>
<p>1590 (790 M)</p>
<p>For the verbal section, the best preparation that you can have is a strong background in reading and literature… the more you read in your spare time, the higher your verbal score will be. If you are trying to memorize vocab words (which i didn’t do and i don’t believe helps too much), try to take one a day, and use the word at least 4 times in conversation or writing that day. even online or whatever. </p>
<p>Don’t believe what all the test prep centers say in terms of crit reading - DEFINITELY read the passage before reading the questions. The other methods try to “beat the system” - they may get u a 650 but you’ll never get an 800 if you don’t read the passage first.</p>
<p>For the math, once you’re upward of 700, it’s really all just silly mistakes you’re trying to correct. On the actual test date, you’ll be more focused and more likely to catch the mistakes (My highest math score in practice was 740, i went up 50 pts in the actual test)… check to make sure you are answering what they ask for. </p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>I think it firstly it depends overall on how smart you are to begin with–many people on here are already extremely bright so simply using Ten Real’s to practice with old tests works well enough. I did that also, but first got a book to learn all of the concepts as well as I could, and went from 13’s to 1430. So I guess you need to assess where you are scoring on the pratice tests first. And I think unfortunatley (or fortunatley for some) the test is important whether we like it or not.</p>
<p>1500 </p>
<p>ten real sats, pr’s wordsmart. also took 2 kaplan exams.</p>
<p>For those of you wondering who I am, I got a 1400 (760V / 640M) as a sophomore. I am worried that I might have reached a peak. I hope not. I want to get above 700 on the math. I always feel good about the verbal, and I guess somehow make stupid errors. I want to fix that.</p>
<p>there’s no way you just peaked. that was like my math score too for a while and i improved (to a 740) just by going over the problems that always tricked me (like probability and ratios…ugh). and i was a junior so you have even more time.</p>
<ol>
<li>720 on verbal was icky. Didn’t really ‘study’, but I did an entire practice test (the whole three hours) over the course of a week. I might take them again on friday if I’m up for it when I wake up.</li>
</ol>
<p>contessa, I agree with you except for the memorizing thing. I used to get about 2/3s of the vocab questions correct. Now after I memorized 2 SAT based dictionaries, I obtained a raw score of 19 on the Sentence Completions and a raw score of 19 on the analogies. </p>
<p>1570 (800M, 770V)</p>
<p>Just practice with 10 Reals and memorize words if that’s your weakness. Just get as used to the CR as you can. That’s my one weak spot. Hate that CR.</p>
<p>haha okay i stand corrected…
whatever works for you!
congrats on the good score</p>